The Dartmouth men's basketball team has ended its bid to form a union, opting to withdraw their petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Tuesday.
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This decision comes as the NLRB is set to be controlled by Republicans in the near future, and the team's legal advisors at Service Employees International Union Local 560 (SEIU Local 560) chose to avoid a potentially unfavorable ruling that could set a damaging precedent.
"While our strategy is shifting, we will continue to advocate for just compensation, adequate health coverage, and safe working conditions for varsity athletes at Dartmouth," said SEIU Local 560 president Chris Peck in a statement. "Collective bargaining remains the only viable pathway to address issues facing college athletics today." Despite pulling back from the union push, the union's commitment to addressing athletes' concerns remains firm.
The Dartmouth men's basketball team initially filed with the NLRB in 2023, claiming that the school exerted enough control over their schedules and working conditions to qualify them as employees under federal labor laws. A regional NLRB official sided with the players, and in March, the team voted 13-2 to join SEIU Local 560. The union already represents some of Dartmouth's workers, and the players believed they could use collective bargaining to improve their conditions.
However, Dartmouth quickly rejected the union effort, with the school stating that it would refuse to bargain with the players, pushing the case to potentially be decided in federal court. "Athletes in the Ivy League are not employees," Dartmouth said in a statement in March, arguing that the players were students whose educational programs include athletics.
A college athletes union would have been a historic move in American sports, but the Dartmouth effort now joins previous attempts to unionize college teams. Notably, a previous attempt by the Northwestern football team failed after opponents argued that public universities in the Big Ten were not under the jurisdiction of the NLRB. Additionally, a separate NLRB complaint is underway seeking to classify football and basketball players at USC as employees of their school and the NCAA.
As the NLRB's political landscape shifts, it remains to be seen how future efforts to unionize college athletes will unfold.
